1906 – Philadelphia manager Connie Mack needed a substitute outfielder in the sixth inning of a game against Boston and called on pitcher Chief Bender to fill in. Bender hit two home runs, both inside the park.
1907 – Boston’s Big Jeff Pfeffer threw a no-hitter to give the Braves a 6-0 victory over the Cincinnati Reds in Boston.
1929 – Carl Hubbell of the New York Giants pitched a no-hitter against the Pittsburgh Pirates, the first by a left-hander in the majors in 13 seasons.
1935 – In the first game of a doubleheader, Ernie Lombardi of the Cincinnati Reds hit four doubles in consecutive innings (sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth) off four different Phillies pitchers. Lombardi also singled as the Reds beat Philadelphia 15-4.
1946 – Boston shortstop Johnny Pesky scored six times, setting an American League record, in a 14-10 win over the White Sox. Pesky, who was 4-for-5 in the game with a walk and two RBIs, matched Mel Ott’s National League mark for runs scored in a game.
1966 – Frank Robinson became the only player to hit a home run out of Baltimore’s Memorial Stadium. Robinson hit a 451-foot – 541 feet total – shot on a fly over the left-field wall off Cleveland right-hander Luis Tiant. The Orioles won 8-3.
1966 – The St. Louis Cardinals closed Busch Stadium with a 10-5 loss to the San Francisco Giants.
1968 – Jim “Catfish” Hunter of the Oakland A’s pitched a perfect game to beat the Minnesota Twins 4-0.
1984 – Minnesota’s Kirby Puckett had four singles in his first major league game as the Twins beat the California Angels 5-0.
1994 – The Colorado Silver Bullets, the first women’s team to play a pro men’s team, lost 19-0 to the Northern League All-Stars. Leon Durham hit two homers and Oil Can Boyd started for the All-Stars. The Silver Bullets had two hits, struck out 16 times and made six errors.
1998 – Mark McGwire became the fastest player to hit 400 home runs when he connected in the third inning of the St. Louis Cardinals’ game against the New York Mets. McGwire, the 26th player to reach the milestone, hit his 400 homers in 4,726 at-bats. The previous best was 4,854 by Babe Ruth.
2001 – Randy Johnson became the third pitcher to strike out 20 in nine innings, but didn’t finish the game as the Arizona Diamondbacks went on beat Cincinnati 4-3 in 11 innings. Johnson, the first left-hander to strike out 20, missed out on the chance to join Roger Clemens and Kerry Wood as the record-holders for a nine-inning game because Arizona could not finish off the Reds in regulation.
2003 – Aaron Boone hit three solo homers, leading the way as the Cincinnati Reds beat the St. Louis Cardinals 8-6.
2010 – Jody Gerut hit for the cycle and drove in four runs as the Milwaukee Brewers pounded the Arizona Diamondbacks 17-3. Gerut hit a solo home run in the second inning, singled in the third, drove in a run with a triple in the fifth and added a two-run double in the ninth.
2010 – Mark Teixeira joined Lou Gehrig as the only Yankees to hit three home runs against the Boston Red Sox, and he and Francisco Cervelli drove in five runs each as New York beat Boston 14-3. Teixeira hit solo homers in the fifth and seventh, then added a two-run shot far over the left field wall in the ninth off outfielder Jonathan Van Every for the third three-homer game of his career.
2012 – Josh Hamilton became the 16th player to hit four home runs in a game, launching a quartet of two-run drives against three different pitchers to carry the Texas Rangers to a 10-3 victory over the Baltimore Orioles. Hamilton homered off Jake Arrieta in the first and third innings, added another off Zach Phillips in the seventh and topped it off sending an 0-2 pitch over the center-field wall against Darren O’Day in the eighth. Hamilton also doubled in the fifth inning. His 18 total bases set a single-game American League record, and his eight RBIs were a career high.
Today’s birthdays: Alfredo Simon, 24; Wily Peralta, 26; Adrian Gonzalez, 33.
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